Meanwhile, the supply of new houses is slowly catching up with the relatively high demand. There were 353,000 new homes for sale at the end of June, the highest monthly inventory since December 2008, according to Lewis.
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Fannie Mae chief economist Doug Duncan said that while the June sales were significantly lower than projected, the slump in sales was not surprising.
“Some of the slowing in the sales pace likely reflects a move toward normalization in homebuying demand following the pandemic-related surge,” he said. “A recent measure of homebuilders’ sentiment revealed a pullback in the buyer foot traffic metric, which reached the lowest level in nearly a year, while the June 2021 Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index showed a further increase in the share of respondents indicating it’s a bad time to buy a home. We believe many of the past year’s buyers likely pulled forward their intended purchases to take advantage of low mortgage rates and remote working opportunities, while stimulus checks provided down payment support.”
The median sales price of new houses sold in June was $361,800, while the average sales price was $428,700.